Exploration of public’s willingness to participate the crowd-sourcing services : a case study of Hong Kong

Abstract

With crowd logistics becoming an essential part of the last-mile delivery challenge in many countries and regions, encouraging the public participation of crowd logistics has become an important affair affecting the development of the crowd logistics platform. Learning how people are motivated to participate in crowd logistics can shed light on the industry’s policies and efforts to support its further growth. Based on the Push–Pull–Mooring (PPM) theory, this survey developed a research model to illustrate the factors influencing Hong Kong people’s participative behavior. Survey data from 78 Hong Kongers were analyzed. The empirical results reveal that monetary rewards, entry barriers for work, and trust are significant factors for the locals to participate in crowd logistics. Meanwhile, previous job enjoyment has a moderate negative correlation with the willingness of the general public to participate in crowd logistics. However, previous job flexibility and cost of participation show the least significant impact on the decision to participate in crowd logistics. According to the findings of this study, it is recommended that crowd logistics platforms provide justifiable monetary incentives and constantly review these incentives. In the meantime, they should also build a high degree of trust between the platform and the general public as well as the workers.